The Trials of Zacharias Clendon
by polluxofgemini
Summary: Zacharias Clendon lived in the slums near Slaughterhouse Row - until his life was ripped out from under his feet by the Abbey of the Everyman. Now he must endure the Trials of Aptitude and a cruel initiation to begin his new life as an Overseer. But the Outsider may have different plans in mind ...


**Chapter 1 – The Proper Inclination**

I can still remember them screaming.

I was twelve years old at the time. It was a cold evening in the Month of Darkness, and I had just gotten home from school. As I walked, I braced the collar of my coat against the biting cold. I was looking forward to a warm cup of Black Morley Tea while I did my schoolwork by the fireplace.

My father was not a wealthy man, but I was too young to know what poverty was. We lived in a small flat in a residential district near Slaughterhouse Row. Sure, the smell was bad, but after a while you got used to it – and the fumes too. But it didn't matter to me. It was the only life I had ever known. Why should I long for anything different?

It had rained earlier that day. I remember because I had slipped on the cobblestone street, rounding the corner to home. My mate had laughed at me, but I splashed him with the puddle water and kept walking toward home. He just chuckled at me, that goof, and ran on to his own home, a few blocks from mine. Over my shoulder I saw him disappear down the cloudy lane, weaving amongst the other children going home and the butchers changing shifts for the night. Had I known then what I know now, I would have gone with him, and maybe none of this would have ever happened to me. Perhaps I, at least, would have been safe. But time doesn't work that way.

As I got close to my building I heard the normal sounds: families talking, singing, shouting at each other; glasses Bottle Street Whiskey clinking as the bottles were empties and spirits were lifted; coins jangling on tabletops as a new trick of Nancy was dealt. And as for music, I was in luck: old Mr. Hamersmacht had gotten his audiograph player out, and a lovely Vindicci piece was flowing across the grimy street. Of course, behind it all was the low whine of the butchers' saws and the rumble of passing whaling ships, but I had stopped hearing those sounds long ago.

With my books slung over my shoulder, I entered through the front door of our building and began climbing the staircase that joined all the flats. Warmth immediately washed over me; we on the West Bank are forced to fight diligently against winter's cold. I could smell my mother's cooking wafting down to me from three floors up: seared hagfish again, probably served with darkbread, potatoes and carrots. It was cheap food, but I didn't mind. My mother could work miracles with the right spices.

Reaching the door of my flat, I saw that it was curiously ajar, which gave me concern. But, listening, I could hear my parents' voices coming from inside, and so I assumed that all was well. I was, perhaps, too hasty in this assessment. I took a step over the threshold – and froze.

The first thing I noticed was that my mother's cooked dinner was all over the floor, and that I was standing in it. Simultaneously, I had become aware that there were other voices coming from inside the flat, and that none of them were friendly. There had been a commotion quite recently. I felt it again, that feeling so natural to the residents of Slaughterhouse Row: fear.

"Now, now, Mrs. Clendon," came a thick, rough voice, "there's no need for things to get … messy."

I edged forward, careful to make hardly a sound. From the kitchen I could see into the living room where a fire was smoldering away, lighting the walls with a dancing orange blaze. In the flickering light I saw the glint of gold on two black tunics, their torsos bound by leather harnesses with brass clasps. I didn't have to see the masks to know. It was the uniform of an Overseer, the soldiers of the Abbey of the Everyman. And if there were Overseers in my flat, well, that doesn't bode well for anyone.

The two Overseers stood in the far corner, side by side. One had drawn his sabre and was pointing it at the throat of my father, who was kneeling on the floor. My father appeared to be breathing hard. I suspect he had been crying.

The other Overseer had drawn his pistol, and was pointing it across the room. As I crept further around the corner, I saw the nightmare unfold before me in its fullness: there was my mother, my sweet mother, staring down the barrel of an Overseer of the Abbey.

To my surprise, she was not frightened, or did not seem to be. Her face betrayed nothing; she was utterly calm. The Overseers were not so patient.

"One more time, Mrs. Clendon," one of them snarled, "it's really very simple. All you have to do is show us where it is."

The Overseer standing over my father made the slightest gesture with his sabre. A faint trickle of blood formed on the side of my father's neck. He sucked in a sharp breath, but otherwise remained silent.

Even so, my mother said nothing. For a fraction of a second I saw an expression of concern and sorrow flit across her face, but the next moment it was gone, her face returned to the same impassivity. I could tell that the Overseers were getting frustrated, and I myself was becoming quite concerned for my parents. I was certain that they would hurt him again unless she gave them what they wanted. As I watched, preparing for more violence, my body tensed against the wall – and that's when my foot slipped on the hagfish.

It wasn't a loud noise, not exactly, but in the pregnant silence of my once-comfortable flat, it was deafening. In an instant I had been wrestled into the grasp of the Overseer who was brandishing the pistol. I felt something small, cold and hard pressed against my skull, and I knew my life was one twitchy finger away from ending. My mother could no longer keep a blank face; her mouth tumbled open with an avalanche of words but none of them came out. She was crying now. I fought against the Overseer's grip, but his arm was like iron and I was stuck fast.

I don't remember what words were exchanged next, but my mother's will had folded. She was unwilling to risk my life in the standoff. Reluctantly she walked over to a small cupboard in the wall behind her, one I had never seen opened before. There was a somber look on her face as the cabinet door swung open.

Inside the cabinet was a small structure that had an odd shape – even to this day I find it hard to describe. It seemed to be crudely constructed of small wooden beams and nails, on which was draped an elegant purple cloth. I had never seen such a fabric before; it seemed to produce its own light and its own darkness, all at once. It is one of the most mesmerizing things I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, the Overseer was not as smitten with the object's allure as I was. He looked at it with a dark glint in his eye, and he leered at my mother. His mask made him a faceless being, all except for his eyes – but I am sure that his mouth was twisting to the cruelest of wicked lines. Hatred and delight produce a cruel offspring.

"Curse the Outsider," he sneered at her, "that's black magic." And I could her in his voice that he was smiling.

With that, he flipped his pistol around in his hand, and with a violent movement everything turned to darkness. I slept the most restless and painful sleep I have ever known.

I awoke with a start. I was lying on a cold marble floor in a room with simple but expensive wooden paneling. The room was large and mostly empty; a partition of metal bars confined me to the back end of the room, where a few empty benches and chairs surrounded me. The rest of the room was more difficult to make out; I was at first blinded by a large array of bright lights.

As I looked toward the middle of the room and my eyes adjusted, my breath stuck in my throat and I lunged at the bars. I hoped against hope that I was dreaming, that I was in the Void, that somehow this wasn't really happening. An Overseer near my cell looked at me and laughed. He was holding a writing tablet and pen, and appeared to have been making notes. I wanted to strangle him then and there.

In the center of the room was an interrogation chair, the sort that was bolted to the floor and had built-in shackles to restrain its victims by hand and foot. Victims like my mother, who was there now, mumbling incoherent words amidst her sobs.

A short distance in front of my mother's chair, a sort of hook-and-pully was suspended from the ceiling, the kind that they used in slaughterhouses to drag the whale carcasses from the ships. Only this one wasn't holding a whale, it was carrying the limp form of my father, suspended from the hook by his bound wrists. His shirt had been ripped from his body, and his torso was rippling with a cold sweat.

As I watched, the Overseer with the writing tablet began pacing in circles around the interrogation chamber, droning out questions as he read them. What was the purpose of the shrine? Who were my mother's compatriots? Did she know of any other witches?

The questions kept coming, and all the while the torturers were at work on my parents. They used plyers and knives, and even a hose that was built into the wall. There was blood and broken bones and more screaming than I'd ever heard in my life. And then they drowned them repeatedly, or nearly drowned them, until my parents were gasping for breath and begging for mercy.

I remember being in shock. I pounded the bars until my hands bled, and I shouted until my voice was completely gone. I cried until the tears stopped coming, and then I cried some more. The longer I watched, the more my spirit died inside me, and in the end I could only kneel there, propped up against the bars, just hoping it would all go away.

In the end my mother gave in, for even the strongest people have a breaking point. As they broke another finger, her will dissolved, and in her agony she cried out a single name. _Vera Moray_. Her lips had hardly moved, but I knew it was over. She hurriedly confessed what little she knew, and the screams finally stopped.

My parents were made to kneel on the floor in front of me, and one of the Overseers drew his pistol. Their sentence was read, but I didn't need to hear it. The charge was heresy and witchcraft, and they had been found guilty. There is only one punishment for that crime.

My father went first, a single bullet to the back of his head, and he slumped face-forward onto the cold ground. In the last seconds of my mother's life, she turned and looked at me, her arm outstretched as if to embrace me one last time.

"Don't forget –"

And then the bullet ripped through her skull, and she joined my father on the floor in a growing pool of blood.

In time they came to get me from my cell. I was delirious and numb. I'd say I was scared, but I was far beyond that. The door opened, and the Overseer with the writing tablet walked in.

I didn't even think. I threw myself into him and laid in punches wherever I could – but at my young age, I could only accomplish so much damage. So I punched for all I was worth, and I threw in a couple bites, too, but I couldn't get a good purchase on him. He wrestled with me a bit, but in the end he simply laughed through his hollow mask and threw me into the corner.

Another Overseer appeared at the door, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sabre.

"What do you think, Franklin?" he said, nodding at his comrade and then gesturing toward me. "What should we do with the boy?"

Overseer Franklin looked at me with cruelty in those cold, dead eyes. "I think," he said slowly, "we may have a contender here, Jasper."

Overseer Jasper's spirits seemed to lift. "A contender? Really? You mean … he has displayed the _proper inclination_?"

With a smooth, fluid movement, Overseer Franklin stepped forward and boxed me upside the head so that my ears rang. I made no retaliation, but I glared with all my deathly rage into those soulless eyes behind his mask. "Yes, brother," he said calmly, stepping back so that Jasper could see, "I think he most certainly has."

"Well, you know what to do, Franklin. Let's see what becomes of the boy."

And as they were tying my wrists, I noticed for the first time the large words pasted on the wall of the room, the words that would serve as the only epitaph of my parents' tomb. _Order Shall Prevail_.


End file.
